Sunday, February 24, 2008

A Nuremburg trial in SF for architectural atrocities

Allan Bennett in the January 3, 2008 edition of the London Review of Books tells us what he would do with those responsible for trashing the town of Bath. We might consider something similar for all the "progressive" rulers and citizens---a list that will include, for openers, Dean Macris and most of the Planning Dept., Ross Mirkarimi, Chris Daly, Bevan Dufty, Gavin Newsom, John King, Rob Bregoff, Robin Levitt, Paul Olsen, and Jason Henderson---who are now in the process of destroying this once-beautiful city. Like Oliver Cromwell's, the late Patricia Walkup's bones would also need to be disinterred:

I'd hold a show trial in Bath, a Nuremburg for all the perpetrators of its architectural atrocities, the money-grubbing councillors who sanctioned it, the mediocre architects who did their bidding, winkled out from their wisteria-covered vicarages for proper retribution. Many of them are of course dead but like Cromwell they could be disinterred and their remains stowed under some sort of monument in the centre of this coming mall, a reminder of the crime they have committed...As the train pulls out I think this is not a city I want to visit again. Before they are artists, before they are craftsmen, be they genius or mediocrity, architects are butchers.

The city was beautiful long before the present generation of smug philistines took charge of the planning process and are now giving us Rincon Hill, the new Federal building, the Market/Octavia Plan, and UC's greed grab on lower Haight Street.

"There haven't been any deaths, but the city claims 13 injury collisions, presumably because of the right-turn hazard. But we haven't seen any real evidence even for this. Let's see some accident reports, telling us who was hurt and who was at fault, etc."

You've probably seen the video on sfbike.org. Watch a cyclist get right-hooked, and then a steady stream of cars making the illegal turn. A quick look at the video should convince most people that the intersection isn't "okay," and that SF drivers include a bunch of callous, distracted idiots who do need to be nannied.

As your citation from my post points out, the city has simply asserted that this intersection---and the right turn---are extraordinary hazards for cyclists without sharing the evidence they have. Part of the larger problem of determining safety at city intersections is that there's no citywide data base to enable us to make comparisons; there are no numbers compiled about cycling accidents at other intersections. Even on the 13 collisions at Market/Octavia, the city hasn't given us enough information to make a proper analaysis---who got hurt and why? Since the city has a bad record when it deals with the sacred bicycle---it insisted that the 500-page Bicycle Plan couldn't possibly have any effect on the city's environment!---it has little credibility with those of us skeptical of its hysterical laments about the safety at either that intersection or the Masonic/Fell intersection. Let's see the same information the city has so we can make an informed judgment on the alleged dangers.